Stereo 8 , commonly known as the eight-track cartridge , eight-track tape , or simply eight-track , is a magnetic tape sound recording technology. It was popular in the United States [1 ] from the mids to the lates, when the Compact Cassette format took over, but aside from a brief early period of moderate popularity in the UK [2 ] [3 ] was relatively unknown in many European countries.
It was a further development of the similar Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge created by Earl "Madman" Muntz. A later quadraphonic version of the format was announced by RCA in April and first known as Quad-8 , then later changed to just Q8. The original format for magnetic tape sound reproduction was the reel-to-reel tape recorder , first available in the US in the late s, but too expensive and bulky to be practical for amateur home use until well into the s.
Loading a reel of tape onto the machine and threading it through the various guides and rollers proved daunting to some casual users—certainly, it was more difficult than putting a vinyl record on a record player and flicking a switch—and because in early years each tape had to be dubbed from the master tape in real-time to maintain good sound quality, prerecorded tapes were more expensive to manufacture, and costlier to buy, than vinyl records.
To eliminate the nuisance of tape-threading, various manufacturers introduced cartridges that held the tape inside a metal or plastic housing to eliminate handling. Most were intended only for low-fidelity voice recording in dictation machines. Prerecorded stereophonic music cartridges were available, and blank cartridges could be used to make recordings at home, but the format failed to gain popularity.
The black rubber pinch roller is at upper right. Program starts and stops were signaled by a one-inch-long metal foil that activates the track-change sensor. Bill Lear had tried to create an endless-loop wire recorder in the s, but gave up in , even though endless-loop 8 mm film cartridges were already in use for him to copy from.
He would be inspired by Earl Muntz's four-track design in the early s. Inventor George Eash invented a cartridge design in , called the Fidelipac cartridge. Fidelipac cartridges nicknamed "carts" by DJs and radio engineers were used by many radio stations for commercials, jingles, and other short items right up until the late s when digital media took over.
Eash later formed Fidelipac Corporation to manufacture and market tapes and recorders, as did several others, including Audio-Pak Audio Devices Corp. There were several attempts to sell music systems for cars, beginning with the Chrysler Highway Hi-Fi of the late s which used discs.
Entrepreneur Earl "Madman" Muntz of Los Angeles, California, however, saw a potential in these "broadcast carts" for an automobile music system. In he introduced his Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge stereo system two programs, each consisting of two tracks and tapes, mostly in California and Florida.
He licensed popular music albums from the major record companies and duplicated them on these four-track cartridges, or "CARtridges", as they were first advertised. The major change was to incorporate a neoprene rubber and nylon pinch roller into the cartridge itself, rather than to make the pinch roller a part of the tape player, reducing mechanical complexity. Lear also eliminated some of the internal parts of the Eash cartridge, such as the tape-tensioning mechanism and an interlock that prevented tape spillage.
In the Cousino, Eash, Muntz, and Lear cartridges, tape was pulled from the center of the reel, passed across the opening at one end of the cartridge and wound back onto the outside of the same reel. The spool itself was freewheeling and the tape was driven only by tension from the capstan and pinch roller. With a reel turning at a constant rate, the tape around the hub has a lower linear velocity than the tape at the outside of the reel, so the tape layers must slip past each other as they approach the center.
The four-program arrangement meant that album track listings had to be shuffled from their intended sequence. Take Magical Mystery Tour , pictured above, for example. Oh, Columbia House. How did you stay in business for so long? RCA also had a mail-order record club. We can't be the only ones who got that baker's dozen right before moving houses, bailing on that commitment to purchase more.
Image: motleynews. As the popularly of the format took a nosedive in the s, the 8-track tape was largely relegated to such mail-order record clubs. If you were an 8-track collector and wanted hit albums like John Cougar's American Fool or the Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill , you had to go through a record club. Image: 8 Track Heaven. While it is not a certainty, most collectors claim that Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits compilation in was the final commercially released 8-Track. There were some easy listening collections released by Readers Digest in the following year, but good luck finding another 8-Track from a big name act after Fleetwood Mac.
Image: Discogs. Welcome to MeTV! Find your local MeTV station. Where to watch. See when your favorite shows are on.
See schedule. Personalize MeTV. Around 3, copies were copied to 8-track cartridge and distributed in the US, but then swiftly recalled. Warner Bros issued a recall to send back the store stock, with additional instructions that shop-bought copies should be retrieved if at all possible.
All but three were allegedly located and as this recording was never released on any other format though a test-pressing on vinyl is thought to exist it makes it incredibly desirable for Sinatra collectors. Due to be released alongside the regular vinyl and cassette versions, Capitol Special Markets decided at the last minute that the cartridge would not be released and ordered all copies to be destroyed.
This is another semi-mythical 8-track tape, being an early release that was recalled by the manufacturer due to moral concerns raised by the cover. In many ways the 8-track packaging is watered down from the vinyl version, as the outer card sleeve has the couple tastefully shot from behind, but the label on the cartridge itself has the full-frontal shot of the pair as revealed on the LP cover.
The second full-length Monkees LP was recorded in late and released on Colgems early in in mono and stereo vinyl, with a version produced for the then-newly released 8-track systems. Their most successful album, it remained at No 1 on the Billboard for 18 weeks. For quadraphonic vinyl to be created, the original 4-track source is mixed down into a compatible stereo track that can be pressed onto the LP format, with the home quad system decoding this to playback the original mix.
However, the contemporary encoding and decoding equipment was not up to the job, meaning the playback was never as discrete as the master tape. But in the UK, EMI created their Quad 8-track direct from the master tape, making it the only commercially released version in the true four-channel format as intended. The original LP was mixed in quadraphonic sound but was only released on vinyl in this format in South America.
However, a UK 8-track quad cartridge was released, but unsurprisingly sold in small numbers, making this version highly collectable today. Enthusiasts wanting to hear the quad mix without going to the trouble of tracking down the 8-track edition or the Brazilian vinyl can find the entire quad version with SQ encoding intact on Disc 3 of the Harvest Years compilation.
In an unusual move for a format that was increasingly marginalised, Capitol issued an in-store promotional 8-track cartridge featuring five songs from The Beatles — Live At The Hollywood Bowl. No promo vinyl or cassette versions of the album are thought to exist and this release is the only promo 8-track ever released featuring Beatle material. As a member of the Columbia or RCA record clubs in the US you gained access to new releases on 8-track well into the late 80s despite the format being effectively dead in the water.
Earlier U2 cartridges also sell strongly. Plume Latraverse is a counterculture rock, blues and folk musician, poet and author from Quebec, who uses these media to examine the seedy underbelly of society, particularly the tensions between the French and Quebecan ways of life.
Very rarely seen in this 8-track version, this Columbia House Music Service edition of the MC classic was not available through the normal retail outlets. Demand for 8-tracks was s lowing as compact cassettes really got a grip on the in-car entertainment marketplace and CDs began to appear in greater numbers. Quad tapes will attract audiophiles looking for true separation of the tracks, something that vinyl of a similar vintage typically fails to deliver.
Though effectively a bootleg, this DIY 8-track edition was given the seal of approval by the band who sold the first 50 copies on their 2 x 4 Tour with Leif Garrett, with the rest sold from the Life Is Abuse website. Depending how lucky you are, there are bonus tracks on some tapes. The widespread use of the 8-track tape led to the development of many types of equipment, both stereo and mono. You can find decks designed for vehicles that mount to the center hump or that install in the dash.
Many in-home options are available, from stand-alone players complete with amplifier and speakers to player and recording decks that integrate with a larger sound system.
Portable players, like boom boxes, were widely used because they made it possible to listen to tunes anywhere. Many decks can record stereo audio tracks to the cassette tape, as well. The 8-track tape was used for almost 20 years, and every major musical artist of the time released a tape version of each album during that era. There are still millions of recordings available on 8-track tapes. Having an 8-track player as a part of your audio equipment could open up a whole new world of collecting possibilities.
Skip to main content. Shop by Category. Shop by Featured Refinements.
0コメント